Oleg Frontinsky
MEETING WITH Ustyugova
After Oleg Grigoriev took all my acquaintance with the extraordinary people. He introduced me to Gena Ustyugova year in 1972. Presented it as just an artist, not saying anything about his genius. Yes, and in the exterior of a new acquaintance did not have these symptoms. In a clean coat and hat, with a neat mustache, was more like an accountant or an agronomist. And he lived in a village on the right bank of the Neva River, in Novosaratovka. Mechanically took the address. Eternal thirst picturesque impressions pushed to go. By the time I looked through Moscow. Was with Rabin and Tselkova have Grobman and Sitnikov, but only Yakovlev started from a miracle.
The second time it happened in Novosaratovka. Unfolding panorama of Neva, Utkin and creek, not far from Forest Park - Novosaratovka. Mother digging in the garden. She did not allow his son to the worldly affairs. In bleached parlor - a couple of pictures. I remember a girl and an old woman, a girl with his head bowed in Ustyugovskoy pose. The picture then got to the doctor, patients are going to work.
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The genes for this was the first contact with a connoisseur of art. Many years after the expulsion of SKHSH nobody reacted to his paintings. It recently was fired for keeping the Bible. SKHSH after 10 years have passed. There, he was known to fame first colorist, on teachers, which covered colas and two. Gene has scored its head of school knowledge. From birth were open higher truths and have contacts with the finest fabrics. He felt his creation "in the image and likeness." Being perfectly honest, that is peculiar to certain Russian eccentrics, he decided to do just that will lead him to the heights of art. And that takes us away from reality into the world of speculative and perfect. And the real world - is hostile to such people "inappropriate behavior." And how many suffered this fragile and proud man!
And SKHSH his prized not only teachers. Shemyakin podvorovyval himself and copied his work in secret. Remember the angel from the collection Sidorova - this is purely Ustyugov. On the early formation of our nuggets I've written in the text of V.Shagine. Underground situation demanded: or develops early, or you'll die undeveloped.
On that first visit Gene showed me a large stack of drawings - pieces 200. Seven of them I took with him, paying, remember to 5 rubles. Only seven of these were preserved. Among them - two watercolors that there are no price - only Botticelli could close. Can you imagine? In Novosaratovka!
Then past the flower beds with fennel (or radish), we went to the barn. In the dim glow softly magical painting. And on the shelves - violin, pipes, horn, vases with dried flowers, old books, icons ... All of this comes in long hiking. The walls of the shed to shield the space of another life, one could breathe and dream. For the second time in the years I was a miracle of painting.
There was a touch of the mystery and the tedious wait of happiness that is not available in life. Spirit mysteriously turned into matter. Anthem was sung stranger with color, sometimes dense, like enamel, sometimes running on the canvas under impulsive brush. Here he flashed a red flag in the girl's dress (woman and an old woman), that flows in a gentle green slender figure girl with blue and glowing red in one of the portraits, and silver dress running down the beach. But most of all I remember the wonder white in a still life with bottles, bottles of white in the air gray-blue with a scattering of green apples. Why I took it right away? Equal this masterpiece was not in the painting of the 20th century. Now, this is not and still life and "running on the beach." Caught in the arm during a routine destruction of paintings, where the author is combined in one person and Botticelli and Savonarola. Then burn patterns.
It seems that it was spring, the time when:
Ringing in the yard drops
Grass fighting for freedom,
Composes an ode to the sun
Gabby April ...
Remember - we took out of the barn canvas and hung on the fence, and the gray-blue still life vanished into the blue sky, and "traveling" jumped over the ditch, and the girl with the pigeon was ready to run it in the cloud. Thawed state farm field, where his father had recently worked Genin, first director and then a carpenter (agronomist). Larks were singing. And rejoicing painting ... Yes, it was.
A few days later I am back in Novosaratovka. I was still too early to share the discovery. Under the roof of the attic, I found six bags of potatoes stuffed with fragments of painting. So hard he polished his skills. Why am I not taken then these bags? All Russian museums would shine Ustyugova. I, successful, not enough common sense.
And then V.Nekrasov repeated this feat, letting the waves of the Moscow River hundreds of drawings. And Schwartz, who had forgotten when moving to an old apartment with suitcase heritage. Some higher law does not sink into the routine of life masterpieces.
Still had to share the joy. The next went to Apex (Alexander Aref). He too was hungry for experience. Returned enlightened. His Gentile's endless scenes of violence, who knows firsthand the life, immersed up to their ears, hit Genin purity. He has already started to get old. Then there was Zilina. It took away some of the best works, and then deposited in the collections of Gore and Laskin. Gene liked everything except B. Shagin.
Ustyugov lived in a boarding SKHSH three years. He thoroughly mastered the craft of painting. He knew how to stretch and prime the canvas. Paint it never withered, brilliance of top reached without varnish, and all amazingly felt the nature of the material that works. Carving the linoleum used homemade graver details of Primus. Associate of the school remembers Mavlyuberdina, who became a theater artist, and Sergei Alexeyev, who became a forester. Later became friends with A. Grigoriev. Academic training system was not carried away, thought that does not give out fantasies.
Recalls his compositions school years full-scale sketches. The family of a general in the department store bought a coat for my daughter. General costs, rolling his eyes, his mother corrects wrinkles, smiling girl in Banten. I think it was like a Solomatkin, the strongest of the Russian colorists. In the second picture - a group of cooks in the kitchen, one pare the second prevents soup in a vat. Blue bucket near the green table and a gray-blue walls. Gene loved the color already. He liked the small Dutch. Later, he was close Borisov-Musatov and Russian icons.
Where does our swamp ustyugovsky talent? This nugget is not like anyone else. Neither the French nor the artists 'circle' or the artist of the square. You will not find a direct effect, although sophisticated and knows no less of us. His advice is accurate and precise. Get out - he says - a highlight on board the ship and the clouds hung dirty rags.
Gene was born in a small Russian village of Takmak that got lost among Kyrgyz land. Flowering gardens and the proximity of the mountains, and the mountain river and joy of nature, and the constant anxiety of the conquerors. His father was sent to Kyrgyzstan to impose a new collective farm life. And he was from Vyatka, where talents are not rare (Vasnetsov, Rylov, Charushin). Mother was from the Volga. And then lived in Karelia, and then in Novosaratovka where we met. And then - Grandma street, the house 95. But it's a long song ...